Thursday, August 15, 2013

thumbs up

The cutest thumbs up ever. (2009)

This past spring my friend Meredith and her husband, Jeff,
came out to Utah to do some skiing. It was great telling stories and catching
up on how the kids are. Meredith asked me about the latest ALS happenings and I
filled her in.

I then told
Meredith about a strange trend I had noticed. Recently there had been a sharp
increase in the number of thumbs up people had been giving me. We hypothesized
that perhaps people were giving me a thumbs up because they didn’t know what to
say otherwise. They see it is
increasingly difficult for me to speak and not knowing what to say to me they
become uncomfortable.

But, hooray for those that are patient with me!

While it takes significant effort to enunciate and speak,
there is good news, which is: My hearing
is fantastic! This means that you don’t have to get really close to me and then
speak in an overly loud voice. It’s
awkward if you do.

I recently had a conversation that went something like
this:

Woman “How are you.”

Me “I’m doing great.”

Woman (as she pats my shoulder) “Well you keep hanging in
there.”

Apparently she didn’t believe my response. Between you and me, I'm glad THAT conversation ended quickly.

Back to the thumbs up. Meredith and Jeff laughed about it. Later when they were leaving, both of them
gave me double thumbs up… this WAS funny.